I own a tool belt and I know how to swing a hammer. You might even go so far as to call me handy. This you already know if you’ve been following  long, even halfheartedly, with my adventures in Gallery Land.

You might recall that when I was a kid, my favorite toys were a block of wood, a box of nails and some hammers. So you’re not surprised when I tell you that I’m a DIY-er when it comes to home improvement.

She’s a Gallery Girl. Of course she wants to paint her own walls…

Pause.

Did you know I’m also a landlord? It’s one thing being a Home Improvement DIY-er when you’re responsible for one home. It’s entirely another when you’re responsible for 2.

Enter: Plan Handyman Boyfriend

When my family got word that our tenants would be moving out in the middle of the summer, 2 years and 1 month after we finished hardcore renovations and upgrades on the property, we knew the turn-over pace would be frantic. Hurricane Sandy had left its mark. Our tenants were messy, nay, dirty. So a plan was devised:

I would use the spring to track down a burly, handy, good-natured man to date. By the summer, I’d be able to leverage the promises of grilled meats, cold beer and sex to con him into helping tear-down and re-sheetrock garage walls or install new handles on our kitchen cabinets or basically lift and carry upstairs anything that weighted as much as me.

This was no damsel in distress call. This was a team recruiting endeavor and seemed like a reasonably easy mission.

Sure, my dating resume reeked of pampered suit types who were more accustomed to “hiring someone to do that.” But there were enough former athletes/body-builders/chefs/artists on there to suggest  I did indeed know where to go to find at least ONE guy that could not only help with heavy lifting, but could be actually useful with handtools too.

Alas! The computer programmers and ad execs and consultants and musicians I found, while exceedingly likable, were not going to let me pull a Tom Sawyer on them. There was no way they were white-washing any fences for me… at least not in a heatwave… even if I promised to wear only a bikini while I hand waxed the hardwood floors.

I guess it’s a good thing I’m not afraid of power tools…

To be continued…